2021: Here's the deal, I don't like books about wars, so I'm not sure why I thought I would like a book entitled THE POPPY WAR.

There is such little regard for human life in this book, it was hard for me to handle. We started with absolutely no qualms about expendable characters that are never heard from again, and we ended up with genocide, ripping babies in half, mass rapings, and a whole host of other things that were just very unpleasant to read about. In addition to plot points that I didn't enjoy, the book just had a lot of story elements that I don't like: the main character not learning from her mistakes AT ALL (and in particular, not in time to prevent a literal genocide), the main character not being treated like the child that she is (Rin's like 16 in Part II, right?), and the cliffhanger at the end (because of course this book was predestined to be a series).

I felt like the author didn't want this to be a YA novel, but also didn't let any of her characters have feelings for each other at all? But I shouldn't be surprised, as she also had one of her characters GET RID OF HER UTERUS BECAUSE PERIODS WERE INTERFERING WITH HER TRAINING um what?! I was waiting for this to at least be a major plot point later on, but it didn't have anything to do with what happened down the line. Ugh!

The three different parts felt pretty disproportionate to each other. Thank goodness Jiang came back and we learned what his real role was, otherwise I would have been even more upset that we spent so much time with him during Part I. A new narrator at the top of Part II was very disconcerting, and for him to only last for one chapter! But why?! Also, we started off with such HP vibes (outcast being sent to a school for magic), then graduate to the Avengers (band of misfits figure out what they are really good at and how they can use their talents to save the world / kill people), and end in ... the Nanjing Massacre. It's a wild ride.

I picked this book up because it had been recommended as a book that would break your heart. By the time I reached Part III, I just wanted it to be over. I wanted to be done and finished and not have to read about any other atrocities, only for the main character TO LITERALLY COMMIT THOSE SAME ATROCITIES?! BLAH +1 for a cool premise rooted in Chinese history, -1 for literally ripping a baby in half.

Trigger warnings up the wazoo here: it's super violent, there's mass rape, there's self harm and substance abuse, alongside grief and war and genocide and ugh, it was definitely too over the top for me